


got good taste in you

by keeplovinanyway



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: (kinda-ish) coming out, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, bit of reflecting-on-the-past angst perhaps?, there's also a hidden recipe, v-day video mentions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-16 07:07:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13631199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keeplovinanyway/pseuds/keeplovinanyway
Summary: “Yes, I did have a nice Valentine’s Day, thanks for asking! Who was that, I lost your name, Mauree …? Yes, it- it was a really nice day.”Dan’s voice sounds soft and smiley, and like he almost wants to say more, and Phil stands frozen listening to him. His skin thrums with something like possibility and pride.





	got good taste in you

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my beta [queerofcups](https://queerofcups.tumblr.com/), you've provided really helpful suggestions that I very much appreciated! I felt honored to hear your opinions on my writing.  
> Thank you also to Angie for pointing out an error that would have bugged me a lot if I'd noticed only after posting.

Phil’s standing in the kitchen and cutting red pepper into little pieces. The air around him smells like love – or, at least, it supposedly does. That’s what the label on the candle says, anyway, that’s been burning for a while now on their table in the dining area. Phil told Dan earlier today that it smells a bit more like bubblegum, tiny little bunny babies, and cherry. Dan had smacked him on the ass for that.

“Cherry, huh,” he’d said, and Phil had smirked and leaned in for a quick kiss. “Isn’t that the definition of love?”

“You’re the definition of love,” Phil had retorted, in a _your mum is a door_ kind of voice, but he guesses it didn’t quite have the offending effect he’d been going for.

He smiles as he thinks back on that, and gets a bowl out of the cupboard that he scoops his pepper pieces into. The cupboard door stays open, but he doesn’t notice. Instead he picks up a zucchini and starts cutting it too. He’s got a Spotify playlist going on his phone, and hums along to the opening chords of something slow and sad and French that he’s forgotten the name of.

Today had been one of their better Valentine’s Days, Phil thinks. Valentine’s… it’d been kind of weird between them for a while. Not the first ones, no, not them. He still remembers the thrill of 2010, of having someone to call _his –_ although, thinking back on it, there’d been a lot of anxiety, too. He’d been terrified a bit by all the implications of it. Dan had hinted to him weeks before about sweet things he’d planned, and Phil had felt inadequate in comparison. Unlike Dan, he’d really had no experience in being seriously romantic with other people.

It’d been good though; wonderful, really. Dan had made Phil a document in which he’d compiled all his favorite moments between the two of them – dailybooth screenshots, the first time Phil had tweeted him, their first twitter DMs. Important conversations saved in their skype history, shaping their relationship forever.

And Phil, Phil had made him a video. _The_ video, he guesses. He’d spent hours working on it and it had been weird for a moment, talking to a camera so privately, but he’d just imagined it was a webcam he was talking to. And Dan’s reaction had everything made worth it.

The zucchini is all cut up now, and Phil adds it to the pepper. A little piece sticks to the cutting board and he thinks about how Dan would probably take it and put it in his mouth all raw if he were here. Phil would gag exaggeratedly, and Dan would laugh at him.

He’s got an onion out now, and carefully slices it in half before peeling off the dry layers. He kind of likes cutting onions. He also likes how Dan can’t handle it at all and always ends up crying. Dan laughs at him for his overly strong reaction to raw zucchini, and he laughs at Dan for crying over onions. It’s a good system.

In 2011, when Dan had lived in the dorms, they had gone out.

Like a real proper Valentine’s date. One of those that 24-year old Phil had never had before. They had dressed up and gone for dinner and sat on a table surrounded by many other couples doing the same thing. There had been drinks and nice food and it had felt awesome.

It had been different from 2012. That year had been more quiet, more personal. It could have been because they were less new to each other, but the decision to stay home that day had not really been because of that.

“Don’t want to get people speculating,” Dan had said, and Phil had nodded, a little sadly. They’d done that a lot, after last year’s Valentine’s surprise had suddenly been leaked, and Phil’s most private thoughts had been shared with a few people too many. And as much as it had been a mutual decision to reign in their affections publicly, as much as Phil had needed it to protect himself– it really sucked, how their audience had suddenly become this big factor in decisions that should be just about the two of them.

And then, there’d been the second leak, and 2013 had been a bit awful. Phil wishes he didn’t remember as much of that year’s Valentine’s as he does, because it hurts, frankly. It hurts how they’d accused each other, hurt each other, all under the pressure of the connotations Valentine’s Day now held for them.

They’d cried too much that day. And they hadn’t even cried together, but each of them on their own. It really hadn’t been a good period of time. That February 14 th – it had been too much pressure, maybe, too many emotions bottled up and arguments avoided, and it had exploded when Dan had screamed at Phil for making the video and Phil had brought up all the things Dan said publicly that hurt him and it had felt like- like breaking up, possibly, for a moment.

Suddenly the rice is boiling over, and Phil jerks around to take the lid off the pot. In his frenzy he moves the pot too fast and some of the hot water spills over his wrist. He yelps in pain. Dammit, he always gets distracted cooking. The rice water burns to the stove and it stinks in the kitchen now, not the sweet sweet scent of love like the candle had promised. Phil’s wrist is red and hot and throbs. He sighs and dives his head under the still open cupboard door as he shuffles over to the tap, where he lets cold water run over his skin. He feels all sad and tense and… wrong, now. His phone is playing something obnoxiously upbeat and with a frown on his face he fishes for it with his left hand to turn the music off.

It’s quiet now, aside from the slight bubbling of the rice and the cold water still running over his wrist. It’s quiet enough that he can hear Dan, just up the stairs. He’s doing his liveshow right now while Phil cooks dinner for them. He’s nice like that, sometimes.

Dan laughs loudly and then seems to launch into a rant about something Phil can’t distinguish right now.

It loosens something inside his chest. He sees- no, _feels_ more, a picture of Dan, leaned back in his chair, swirling around a little. Dan in this fluffy black jumper he’s wearing today. The way he closes his eyes and throws his head through the air when he’s really obnoxiously passionate about something. His dimples- just– his dimples.

Dan is a calming thought. He’s been a calming thought for years.

Phil’s wrist is getting cold and he turns the water off to inspect it closely. It doesn’t seem to be burned badly.

It’s even quieter in the kitchen now, quiet enough that Phil can make out what Dan’s saying.

“’… did you like Hamilton’- Micheal, YES, of course. It was fantastic. I haven’t stopped listening to the soundtrack, Lin really is a genius. ‘shut up rat you already talked about it’ excuse me? Who was that? Wait let me- that’s- Leah. Listen, Leah. _Listen_.”

Phil giggles to himself. Oh, Dan.

He gets back to cooking and keeps the music off this time, just listens to Dan in the background. He finishes the onion and opens a can of sweet corn, and another one of chickpeas, and dumps all of that with the rest of the veggies in a pan where it starts sizzling quietly.

Slowly his mind wanders back to his Valentine’s contemplation.

Yes, 2013 had been the worst. But it’s gotten better over the next years. A sudden a conversation comes back to him, it must have been the year right after that big fight.

 _Remember last year_ , Dan had said.

 _I’d rather not_ , he’d replied, and it is a careful feeling he remembers now, how they’d just been quietly building something new. A calm day, a common day, nothing special.

He remembers that, yeah. How hard they had tried to free themselves of the horrible memories they associated with Valentine’s now.

All of their Valentine’s Days after their first three had been kind of ordinary days. Sometimes with sweet gestures for themselves in their own home, but never- never anything really special anymore. It had felt like too fragile of a holiday somehow, too fragile for them to brave something different.

Phil drains the rice – carefully avoiding the water this time – and dumps it in the pan with the sizzling vegetables. He turns around and opens another cupboard door where he fishes around for seasoning- curry for sure, a bit of soy sauce maybe. Salt, pepper- garlic?

“ _Phil and I_ -” there’s a slight pause, “went outside today. Yes, I know, I know. Aliens stole Dan and Phil, I don’t know who we are either. ‘what were you doing’ phantastic asked, doesn’t matter really, went outside, did stuff, but when we came back we suddenly realized that we had forgotten our keys. Yes. Dan and Phil FORGOT THEIR KEYS. I thought about making this into another reasons why Dan’s a fail, but it’s kinda too embarrassing. ‘omg what did you do’ well, yeah, let me get to that. So we stood there, not being able to get inside. Didn’t want to call a locksmith yet because that’s awkward as fuck.”

Awkward, and also really expensive. But of course Dan would leave that part out again, just like he never mentions exactly _how_ expensive his newest jumper really was. Thank god he has Phil to make sure they will both have a decent pension.

“… and we didn’t want to ring our neighbour’s bells either because they are still mad at Phil with his pigeon kink.”

 _Pigeon kink._ Phil snorts.

“So we called our friends who have a key to our flat and just waited there. And then it literally started raining! We really need to get new friends, because they took ages and we were completely soaked by the time they arrived. ‘why didn’t you wait in the hallway’ well Lee, because we would have had to make social interaction with our neighbours to let us in, see. So anyway. We are huge fails.”

They had indeed been soaking wet when they finally got inside. Bryony had laughed loudly at them and said no to the cup of tea they offered her, just said they should get in the shower as quickly as possible.

Which, they did. Both at the same time because no one wanted to wait, which had – not so strangely – transformed into shower sex that helped the warming up process considerably.

Phil smiles into the pan with his rice veggie mix as he stirs it once more before he turns the heat down. He looks at the clock then. Dinner’s finished, but Dan isn’t, and he lets his gaze travel through the kitchen as he thinks of something else to do. Halloumi, maybe? They still have halloumi in the fridge, if he remembers correctly. He could fry some of that, and after those eight minutes or so, Dan would be done too.

It kind of had been a perfect Valentine’s Day this year. They had gone out for lunch. Lunch, because there would not be such a mass of people out already, they’d reasoned. And maybe it had also felt like lunch was one step before dinner, like lunch was what they could take on right now. Because... things had been changing with their audience and within themselves. They had slowly inched towards more relaxation in many ways, and when Dan had asked Phil to go out for a Valentine’s lunch with him with a soft smile, Phil’s heart had jumped a little in his chest and he’d grinned back immediately.

It felt good to be able to do these things now. Exhilarating and scary each time, yes, but also very freeing.

They’d gone for that Thai restaurant they loved, just the two of them together. The waiter had asked if they wanted to see the Valentine’s menu and they had said yes. Phil had been a bit on edge the entire time, halfway prepared for a seemingly very casual reaction if a fan might approach them or even confront them, but no one had seemed to recognize them, and anyway- it’d have been fine. That’s something they’d told each other a lot over the past couple of months with each small step they took out of the closet. If someone were to see this, it’d be fine.

Beneath the table, Dan had caught one of Phil’s feet between his ankles, and Phil had wondered at how he could still feel butterflies, after this many years.

Dan is talking about some music stuff right now that Phil’s a bit relieved not to be the core audience for, for once. It’s still a nice background noise as he carefully lays the halloumi stripes he cut up in the frying pan.

The kitchen is a mess, honestly. Should he clean it…? Maybe, just check twitter for a moment first.

He’s busy scrolling through his timeline and occasionally shaking the pan a little bit, when he suddenly hears from upstairs:

“Yes, I did have a nice Valentine’s Day, thanks for asking! Who was that, I lost your name, Mauree …? Yes, it- it was a really nice day.”

Dan’s voice sounds soft and smiley, and like he almost wants to say more, and Phil stands frozen listening to him. His skin thrums with something like possibility and pride.

To others it would seem small, to strangers who don’t know them at all, but for Phil it feels so big, to acknowledge their romantic lives in any way at all.

He wants to show people, suddenly, desperately, in a strange surge of possessiveness- wants them to see who it is that Dan talks so fondly about. Who it is that he spent his day with, even if they all know, technically.

His gaze snaps to the halloumi, it’s cooked now. Dinner’s ready.

He takes that love that fills him up on the inside, turns the heat down, and walks over to the stairs.

Dan reads off the top fans when he comes into Phil’s view, and he looks over at him stealthily, eyes lighting up and his smile only slightly confused.

Phil smiles back at him, waits for him to finish.

“… thanks for hanging out with me. I, um...”, Dan’s gaze snaps from the webcam back to Phil, inquiringly and laughing, “I’ve got a visitor I think…?”

Phil feels brave.

“Maybe I missed you?”

“You did?” Dan places his hand over his heart in mock affection.

“No, I didn’t, I lied. I just wanted to tell you that dinner is ready.”

Dan looks at him, grinning widely and disbelieving, before a laugh shakes his frame. He pokes his tongue through his teeth slightly and Phil knows he’s just mirroring what he sees on his own face.

“You wanna come say hi…?”

Phil shakes his head.

“No, I just want you to hurry up or I am eating all your halloumi by myself and there won’t be any left for you.”

“Rude!” Dan turns back to his laptop. “Well you heard him guys. Phil doesn’t want me talking to you, it’s not my fault, but I’ve gotta leave.”

Phil turns and walks back down the stairs. “I’ve almost finished eating it all up! It’s so delicious!”

“Shut up rat!” he hears, and giggles slightly to himself. He feels a bit jittery with excitement. It feels so, so good to let themselves just be… themselves, more and more.

He’s just putting the plate down at his seat when Dan joins him in the dining area.

“You were quick.”

“After you threatened to eat all my dinner…! Mmh, that looks good.”

Dan gets glasses for them and then sits down in his seat, feet propped up on the chair beside him, like he always does. Phil tickles a bit at them, like he not always does, but often enough for Dan to anticipate it and kick at him already in advance.

“Ow!”

Dan ignores him. “What was that just now?”

“I tickled you?”

“You know what I mean.”

He does. He takes a bite to stall, and then smiles at Dan as he chews. Dan is sat back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest, prompting Phil silently.

Phil makes a gesture to his mouth to indicate he can’t talk right now, and Dan rolls his eyes and takes the cutlery in hand.

“They went all berserk in the chat, about how domestic that just was and shit.”

Phil laughs. “Did they really?”

“Yeah. Isn’t something we usually do, is it?”

Phil knows it isn’t. Maybe he had done it because of what he’d been thinking about, all of their past Valentine’s Days. Maybe it had been because of how sad it makes him sometimes, how they hid so much of themselves. It could have just been their nice day though, and how he’d been really... happy.

He takes another bite and remembers that feeling that had bloomed inside his chest, warm and full, as he’d stood there, hearing Dan talk upstairs.

“I just… felt like it. Especially after what you had said after it having been a nice day and stuff.”

Dan is already looking at him when Phil meets his gaze. He looks surprised.

“You heard that?”

“Mmh. Listened to you for a bit while I was cooking.”

Dan blushes just the slightest bit and tucks his chin, nudging his knee against Phil’s side under the table. “Well. It was a nice day.”

“It was. It feels really good, to be… to do something like that for us.”

They look at each other for a moment, smiling. Phil leans forward then and presses a kiss onto Dan’s mouth, lingering slightly and relishing in the comfort of it.

“Love you,” Dan says as they pull apart.

Phil feels warm all over and smells the candle again, suddenly. Sweet and fruity is what love’s supposed to smell like, but they got it all wrong, because right now it strangely smells of curry rice with veggies and fried halloumi.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr link](https://heartfeltfangirl.tumblr.com/post/170863468283/got-good-taste-in-you-phandom-fic-fest-vday)
> 
>  
> 
> I took this idea from the [prompt list](https://phandomficfests.tumblr.com/prompts) of the phandom fic fest, thanks guys, I needed that inspiration! (prompt: It’s Valentine’s Day and Phil can hear Dan doing a liveshow downstairs as Phil makes them dinner.)


End file.
